So the first big 12 football bowl game of the ball season is the Texas Tech Red Raiders

will play Cal in the Independence Bowl this Saturday night in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Wanted to get the perspective of our friend Jared Johnson does great work for Inside the Red

Raiders.com. He's joining us on Heartland College Sports. I'm Pete Mundo.

Jared, let's just start big picture. If you told tech fans before the season, they'd be in this bowl game, they'd be

unhappy. But you know what? They had to rally a little bit late to get to a bowl game. So what's

the mindset right now around this game and hopefully using it as a launching pad for 2024.

Yeah, there's no doubt the season was a disappointment compared to preseason expectations.

That's a given. I think that should be said first like you did. But there was a point where they

were down to a true freshman quarterback. It looked bleak.

I think everybody just assumed that Texas Tech wasn't even going to go to a bowl game,

any bowl game. And for them to win three games like they did over TCU, over at Kansas. That went at Kansas was really impressive and was a big time.

I know this is overused, but gut check.

It really was.

16-13 victory there in Lawrence.

And then to come home and beat a UCF team who had been surging,

had just beaten Oklahoma State like 45 to 3 or so.

I can't remember the exact score

but it was you know they were rolling that was huge and it did what it showed was the Texas

the players the Texas Tech players gave a damn to be honest you know because they could have

just packed it in and said you know what this season is going to be a disappointment.

It's not what we thought it was going to be and, uh, you know, just give up.

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